Agility
This page is borrowed heavily from Guardian Cross Forum user Whaz. AGI and Battle Similar to other Square Enix games, Guardian Cross uses an ATB system. In Guardian Cross this is slightly different as each team has a shared ATB meter instead of each character having its own. Imagine that the Offense and Defense both have a meter that goes up to 10,000. At the beginning of each round, the meter goes up by the current AGI of the active Guardian on each team, with Offense adding to the meter before Defense. As soon as a meter fills up, that team gets to act. And the meter is immediately reset to zero with any leftover AGI continuing to fill it that round. This model explains how very high AGI guardians can sometimes make multiple attacks against a single opponent, or even attacking three to four times against multiple, low-AGI opponents in a row. See below for full examples of how this works in an actual combat. AGI Buffs and Debuffs We can see through quick observation that AGI buffs are not used for the initial action calculation for a monster. Windy summarized this well on the Buff/Debuff Mechanism post, noting that an AGI Max Fast Phoenix would act before AGI Maxed Aspara even though the Aspara has an AGI buff. The AGI buff will be added into the Guardian's agility when it starts its second round of action, assuming it lives after the first round concludes. This means any Guardian which keeps an AGI buff should be placed in a deck location where it will either be ready for an attack when it entered the battle, or have sufficient HP to survive an attack made by an opponent. How does this information help? While this information is most useful against a known opponent's deck, it's rare that we have that sort of information. If you had a scenario where you knew your opponent's deck, skills, stats, and both decks have no Guardians with revive, you could calculate with 100% accuracy what the result of a match would be before it ever happened. However, with revive, and the lack of perfect information about your opponents, the above scenario will rarely play out. With that in mind, we still learn the following... ;All Guardians in a deck are important :Even level 1 "filler" Guardians. In cases where you have deck slots which can't be filled with a max level Guardian, choose one with the highest agility. This is especially true with decks that might throw in a level 1 slime as filler, expecting there to be some tangible benefit to slowing down an opponent's Guardian. You'd get more than double the ATB gains for that turn by tossing in a level 1 Qiong-Ji compared to the slime. ;Speed is king :For players that have the ability, putting max AGI stones into all Guardians will help the deck's performance. Even if the Guardian doesn't get an attack off, the gains to the Team ATB will help future Guardians faster, or may setup scenarios where double attacks can occur. ;Tanks Make a Difference :For decks that have a very fast Guardian in front, but might run into faster Guardians against an opponent, placing a slower but very powerful Guardian in the 2nd slot is an effective strategy. Example... place a powerful juggernaut behind your lead-off Fast Fujin. A maxed Fast Fujin will have 3240 Agi, frequently letting it attack first. However other Guardians may still get the jump on it. The Fujin will still fill the bar nearly to max, guarantee'ing the slower Jugg has a chance to kill whatever powerful Guardian the opponent may have used instead. This placement is also a little easier to predict where the ATB bars will be at the point in time, compared to later deck locations which have a large number of actions and a greater variety of AGI values for the Guardians. Example *At the beginning of a battle, both teams have 0 ATB. *For each round, each team's ATB meter is increased by the current AGI of the Guardian in battle, with the attacking team adding to ATB before the defenders. *As soon as either team's ATB meter reaches 10,000, that team gets to act and 10,000 is subtracted from the team ATB meter. We'll use an example where a level 60 Fast Great Golbez attacks Clark in the Town of Mechadane. Offense: *Fast Great Golbez lvl 60, AGI 2337 Defense: *Scylla lvl 9, 752 AGI *Scylla lvl 9, 752 AGI *Scylla lvl 9, 752 AGI *Kelpie lvl 9, 727 AGI *Kelpie lvl 9, 727 AGI *Kelpie lvl 9, 727 AGI *Sandworm lvl 9, 697 AGI *Sandworm lvl 15, 810 AGI *Sandworm lvl 15, 810 AGI *Yurlungur lvl 15, 990 AGI Offense/Defense ATB columns show how full the team ATB meters are. Result is the action taken that round. In this model, there will be many rounds where no action is taken; we're simply waiting to fill up an ATB meter. Note that while the above table fully explains the behavior and is helpful to understand what's happening, there is a way to describe the model with many less steps, but it's a little harder to visualize. The following table shows the same combat as above. Offense/Defense RTF show the required rounds to fill the ATB meter. Offense/Defense ATB columns show how full the team ATB meters are. Actor is the team which gets to act that round. Result is the action taken that round. In this model we're using a math shortcut to skip the rounds where no action is taken, resulting in a 13 round combat instead of 43. Unknowns in the model ;Healing and Draining skills :Testing these abilities is difficult as they are generally undesirable. Based on limited observation, these are treated as standard actions, like any other attack would be. ;Potential Rounding Errors :How rounding works to fill the ATB bar, if it's rounded, floored, or ceilinged. (This level of exactness should be rarely important, given it will be 1 point occassionally towards 10,000) For the sake of example, we're assuming Round calculations to 3 decimal places, and rounding the resultant ATB bar) ;Assumption 1 :All NPC Guardians are cool and have the correct standard stats for the given Guardian/level. :This appears to be confirmed based on damage calculation comparisions and observations regarding Agility, but there isn't enough data to 100% confirm this. It is noted as an assumption, but one made with a high degree of confidence for the NPC's used for test subjects. ;Assumption 2 :All Buffs/Debuffs take place directly before either team acts. :This means that current AGI used to fill the bar for a round is determined before any Buffs/Debuffs for that round. This is almost pure speculation on my part until better data is available. Original text AGI and Combat Similiar to other FF games, Guardian Cross uses an ATB system. Unlike other games where each individual character has its own bar, Guardian Cross uses shared team ATB. The full bar is 10,000 points for an action, and guardians fill the bar proportionally based on their positively buffed agility. At the start of the action phase, the guardian's Agility is looked at, and the number of rounds required to fill the bar is calculated. This is done for both teams. In the event of a tie, the first action goes to the attacker. For the team which did not have an action, their bar is proportionally filled based on how many rounds were required for the opposing team to fill their bar. The team bar continues to fill as each side makes attacks, and any remaining ATB points will be carried forward for the next Guardian in the event one is killed. This explains how higher AGI Guardians can frequently make double attacks, or in the case where there are a number of very low AGI Guardians on the opponent's deck perhaps 3 or 4 attacks before the opponent gets a turn. Category:Basics Category:Battle